When Pantone announced in December the color of the year for 2011 was Honeysuckle, I started thinking about what I already owned in pink. Not exactly Honeysuckle in hue, but bright pink which is similar. Being a self-confessed plate addict who cannot pass by a beautiful stack of plates for sale, I do have some pink plates in my stash. Truthfully, doing a table in all pink is not really something I have a passion for but due to the selection of Honeysuckle, we will all be seeing a lot more pink in 2011. So I decided to let the pink plates have their day. I started to build the tablescape around my garden statue Lucy who you have seen in several past posts.
I am not a fan of totally cluttered table tops where some object occupies every square inch. Some of these plants, especially the scented Hyacinths, would be removed prior to the meal. I think this tablescape would look just fine with just the statue and the Primroses at each place setting. I only want just enough objects to make it intriguing to my guests and interesting enough to start light conversation.
For the flowers, I already had the pink English Primroses, so I went to the grocery store and purchased two pink Hydrangeas and two pink Hyacinths. The Primroses are inside lion-head soup bowls from Williams-Sonoma and the other potted plants are placed on top of pedestal cake plates. The pink china in this tablescape is: 1) an antique Royal Worcester dessert service from around 1877 which has five cake stands and 14 plates; 2) hand-painted service plates by artist A. Rhodes, date unknown, set of 12 all with different painted scenes; and 3) a set of 10 dinner plates by English maker Cauldon and sold in Tiffany's New York store sometime between 1920 and 1930.
First let me show you the overall tablescape with each of the three services and then I will show more detailed photos.
Starting the meal with the service plates, each of these has a garden scene painted in exquisite detail. I don't know who A. Rhodes was, of course, but she was extremely talented. I always wonder who had the china before me and what they were like. These would be wonderful for a small bridal shower in a garden or a lunch for a group of garden club members.
Here we have the Cauldon for Tiffany dinner plates with cartouches and leaves around the edge in a very bright pink border.
And the last service is the dessert plate by Royal Worcester.
Now for the details of the build-out. I first started with a bright pink linen tablecloth from Williams-Sonoma but it looked awful. Too much pink. So I went to white and put on a cutwork tablecloth I purchased from Canada in a crosswise position over top of a white quilt. I am not really a tablecloth fan because it seems they never are made the right size and I don't like just 9" hanging down the sides. But I am okay with layering different cloths on an angle.
I started with my largest gold charger Hemisphere by Jl Coquet below.
The flatware is antique 1898 St.James by Tiffany. I used two sizes of stemware, a water and a wine, with a pink flash stem and bubble clear top from Pottery Barn. My husband inherited from his mother two wine stems in cranberry glass which I believe are Moser Cabochon and then I added more glasses to his set.
Here is a close up of the dinner plate. You can see the lion-head soup bowls as well. They have a gold rim around the top.
Below is a close up of the Royal Worcester dessert plate with a hand-painted floral grouping in the center.
And with some cookies. Honey if you are reading this they will be all gone by the time you get home.
I also want to show you a few of the hand painted service plates.
All are outdoor garden scenes. This one is of a garden staircase.
Roses on an arbor.
A pathway through two columns.
This one has a sundial on a pedestal.
This one has an archway.
Here is the backside of the tablesetting showing how the cake pedestals give height to the flowers. I always like vertical height in my tablescapes.
The remainder of photos in this post are miscellaneous ones you might enjoy.
Next week I will show the remainder of pink plates in my collection.
I am participating in Tablescape Thursday this week on the blog Between Naps on the Porch.
You can view the other entries here:
http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/
I hope this inspires you to put a little pink in your life during 2011.
All the best,
Summer
Photo credits: Swede
